Gottesblog

I'm currently working on Gerhard's volume about sin and free choice (arbitrium) and free will (voluntas). It's yet another wonderful discussion of an intricate theological topic, and once again it will serve as a needed remedy to the confusions of our own day.

I like to go hunting, but for me it is a hobby, not a profession. Something I like to do, but which I certainly don't get paid for. Bill Winke has made a profession of hunting. A profession is something you dedicate your life to and which people value enough to pay you to do. In a profession, you spend a lifetime honing your craft, learning new skills, seeking to get better.

As I argue in my Freed from the Shopkeeper's Prison paper/presentation, if you believe that your activity can increase the number of people in heaven on the last day, then you really cannot have hobbies. Only people who believe that God does the saving and has His elect firmly in His hand can have hobbies. Because if you could be out there saving souls, how can you justify ever not doing that? If the choice is a game of golf or door-to-door evangelism - how could you ever go golfing?

Since the very beginning of the Rebellion, the Commander-in-Chief of American forces has had a unique religious role to play in this land with no established church and thus no established religious leader for the whole nation. Since Washington prayed before attacking those nice Lutheran boys who were just serving their king on Christmas morning in New Jersey, the Commander-in-Chief has taken on the mantle of a secular Pontifex Maximus.